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The smallest possible value for the median is 1. It cannot be smaller, since each stack must contain at least 1 coin. One possible allocation with this median is {1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 10, 10, 10, 10}; many other allocations are possible if a stack may contain more than 10 coins.
The largest possible value for the median is 8. One way to think about this problem is to recognize that there must be 4 stacks below the median, and each must have at least 1 coin. This leaves 41 or fewer coins for the remaining five stacks, and the median must be the smallest of these stacks. Using an equal-shares allocation of the remaining 41 coins results in 4 stacks of 8 coins and 1 of 9, so the median cannot be greater than 8. There are only two possible allocations with this median: {1, 1, 1, 1, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9} and {1, 1, 1, 2, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8}.
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